Personal electronic health records: MySpace or HealthSpace? (BMJ

May 13, 2008

BMJ, doi:10.1136/bmj.39567.550301.80 (published 6 May 2008)

The NHS, through Connecting for Health, is introducing two typesof online health record for everybody in England—the summarycare record and HealthSpace.12 The summary care record is beingintroduced in five “early adopter” pilot sites. An independentevaluation of this implementation was released this week.3 Delaysin deployment, with summary care records in only two sites todate, mean that the evaluation cannot provide the concrete answersthat many people were hoping to see regarding consent, patientacceptance, and clinical benefits.

The summary care record is a centrally stored summary of healthinformation created initially from general practitioner records.It contains information on current medications, adverse reactions,and allergies. Proponents of the summary care record expectto see improved patient safety, with reductions in preventableerrors, improved access to vital information, and better informedpatients.1

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As the EHR is a summary it may not include more detailed information held by contributing care providers. For example the nursing progress notes may have been recorded by the hospital in the patient chart but may not have been included in the event summary for the hospital admission.